The Invention of Monsters
by attica
Summary: [WIP] Of course the first thing Malfoy would think of was to come to the Muggle world if he needed to disappear. It was the last place anyone would think to look for him - in Hermione Granger's childhood home, no less. DHr.
1. Chapter 1

The Invention of Monsters

Disclaimer: I own nothing but a healthy dose of shame and several Ks of student loan debt I would happily let someone else take off my hands. No? No takers? Okay.

* * *

Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

ooo

 **THE DAILY PROPHET**

PANSY PARKINSON FOUND DEAD AT PARKINSON MANOR

On Wednesday morning, the body of Pansy Parkinson, 24, was discovered on her family's estate. According to the Medimorts who arrived at the scene, she was found to be deceased from ingestion of Basilisk venom. Detectives from the Magical Law Enforcement Squad are currently investigating if the nature of her death was self-inflicted or otherwise.

Pansy Parkinson was the sole heir to the Parkinson fortune. Her parents, Udolpho and Marcelle Parkinson, were killed during the Dark War.

If you have any information you think may be pertinent in the ongoing investigation of Parkinson's death, please contact the Magical Law Enforcement Squad in a timely fashion.

ooo

7 Newsome Street was a quaint little house. First painted a pale yellow in 1966 when it was first built, it now resembled more of a cream color, the sunniness bleached away by decades of weather. The short walkway to the door was lined with an array of well-tended flowers, along with a small, square lawn that was routinely maintained under the watchful eyes of members from the Division 12 Surrey Homeowners Group.

Unthreatening and bland, number 7 was barely distinguishable from the row of identical, suburban three to four-bedroom homes that occupied mostly every street for miles. They were homes for small families that were comfortable with being away from the city even if it meant occasionally getting lost in a maze of generic middle-income housing.

It was on a Thursday night that the occupants of 7 Newsome Street heard their doorbell ring.

A confused Nancy Granger turned off the faucet and wiped her hands on a tea towel.

"Henry, are you expecting a visitor?" she called out.

"No," he called down from upstairs. "Are you?"

Nancy left the kitchen, making her way across the living room to the door. She heard Henry's footsteps descend on the stairs.

"You think it's those magazine-selling bastards again?"

"It's eight in the evening," Nancy said.

"All the better. They'll expect you to be home and too tired to be skeptical of answering the door."

Nancy and Henry Granger cautiously opened the door to see a man standing on their doorstep. He was tall, pale, and wearing dark robes. He didn't look too well, either – there was some blood on his forehead, his lip was split and purple, and his right eye was beginning to swell up. Henry Granger instinctively moved in front of his wife.

"Can we help you?"

"I'm looking for Granger," he said hoarsely.

"Yes?" Mr. Granger said, warily.

"No, Granger," the man weakly rasped, shaking his head. " _Hermione_ Granger."

Before the Grangers could say another word, the man collapsed in a heap on their doorstep.

ooo

"Oy, go home, will you? You're making the rest of us slackers look bad."

Hermione looked up to see a petite brunette standing in front of her desk. It was her coworker, Lisa Turpin, with an amused look on her face. Hermione turned back to the case file she had been signing off on.

"Correction: I've been making you slackers look bad for the past four years," Hermione said dryly. "Why stop now?"

"Because you're too pretty to coop yourself up in a stuffy office with bad lighting," Lisa frowned. "Frankly, none of us know why you work so hard. You helped save the world. Put that on your resume and you can have any job you want. Or better yet - _not_ work at all," she said, wistfully. "Go prance off to a tropical island and drink refreshing alcoholic beverages from the inside of a pineapple."

Hermione smiled. Mostly because she was allergic to pineapples. "I'm afraid helping ' _save the world'_ didn't come with a monetary reward. In fact, the war actually bankrupted the Ministry of Magic."

Lisa scrunched up her nose. "Well, I know that. But the money's out there. You could have a book deal, do speaking engagements -" Lisa stopped, looking at her. She sighed, rolling her eyes. "But you wouldn't, because you're a person who actually _likes_ working hard. You're despicable."

"So I've heard," smiled Hermione.

"I'll see you on Monday," Lisa said. "Hermione, please go home. I beg of you. Have a glass of wine. Wank off. Get some sleep. Just get out of this dusty old place before you die in it."

"Good night Lisa," Hermione said, not looking up from her stack of files. She listened to the sound of Lisa's high heels fade down the hall. She liked Lisa, she did – but, Lisa always being the second last to leave, it always relieved her a little bit to see her go. Hermione relished the sound of a quiet office. During the regular workday, the office was filled with the usual workplace cacophony - the frantic hum of anxiety, too little caffeine, and too much to do in so few hours in a day. There would be people walking by to say hello as well as the comings and goings of friendly chatter that interrupted her focus.

Hermione finished up and placed the file on her Completed stack on the corner of her desk. She looked forlornly at the other, much taller stack of Incompletes on her desk, but sighed and began to pack up her things for the night. She knew those would still be there bright and early on Monday morning.

She'd just shrugged on the strap of her purse when an owl flew through their office, dropping off a letter on her desk.

Hermione stared at the letter, wondering if it could wait. Could she risk it? It obviously had to be important to come this late in the day.

She picked it up and tore it open.

 _Sorry to bother you at work, dear. A man showed up to our doorstep just now, said he was looking for you, and then promptly fainted. Your dad and I have made him quite comfortable on the couch, but whenever you have a moment, you ought to drop by. He was bleeding a bit._

 _Your dad said I ought to give you a description. He didn't get a chance to tell us his name. He's blond, very tall, very lean. Is it appropriate to tell you he's quite handsome?_

 _Please do pop on by when you have a moment._

 _All my love, Mum_

ooo

Hermione dressed the wound on his head and used a Healer trick she had learned from Ginny to survey if he had anything else amiss in his body - broken bones, ruptured organs, etc. Aside from some bruised ribs, his forehead wound, busted lip, a black eye, and what Hermione presumed to be a minor concussion, he wasn't in too dire of a condition to be taken to Hospital. Not yet, anyway.

At least, this was what she kept telling herself. She tensely sat on the armchair across from him, watching him with a furrowed brow. The sight of him in her Muggle parents' living room was jarring. His legs were too long and they stuck out at least one foot over the edge of the couch's arm, exposing his expensive leather boots, the soles thinly caked with mud. Someone – her mum, she would bet – had taken off his cloak and folded it neatly on the coffee table. His white collared shirt was stained with blood and dirt. The sight of him so unkempt would have unnerved her, too, had they not fought in a war together four years ago.

Her mum handed her a cup of tea. Hermione put it down on the coffee table in front of her and watched the steam rise from it.

"Do you think he'll be unconscious for long?"

"I don't know," Hermione said, gnawing on her bottom lip.

"Why do you think he's here?" her mum whispered. "Maybe he's come to, I don't know, ask you out to dinner?"

Hermione scoffed. She would have found her mum's unrelentlessness a great deal more amusing were she not so preoccupied with being concerned over Malfoy turning up so unexpectedly – and suspiciously – on her Muggle parents' doorstep. At that thought, she got up and walked over to their windows, peeking through a small gap in their curtains.

"Somehow I highly doubt that, Mum," she replied.

"Oh, honestly, darling," her mum tsked. "You don't give yourself enough credit. You're a beautiful, brilliant girl. Who's to say he didn't come all this way as a bit of a romantic gesture?"

Under the dim streetlamp, Hermione watched their longtime neighbor Mrs. Gardner walking her dog, Mr. Churchill, and then as Mr. Churchill squatted on their front lawn. Mrs. Gardner idly stood by and then walked away with Mr. Churchill in tow when he was finished defecating.

Other than that, there was nothing. No suspicious people. Aside from the one on their couch, anyway.

"No offense Mum, but I'm pretty positive he isn't here with romance in mind, what with showing up concussed and all," she said dryly. Hermione sighed, stepping back from the curtains and returning to her seat. "Mr. Churchill left us a present on our lawn again."

"That Mrs. Gardner. I'd report her but she's the head of the committee," her mum grumbled.

Hermione began to wring her hands, looping her fingers around each other. She knew it wasn't safe to keep her parents around. She needed to get them out of here, and someplace safe.

"Listen, Mum. I think you and Dad should take a trip to see Aunt Esther and Grandpa. Starting tonight. For at least a few days."

Her mum's eyebrows met in the middle of her forehead. "Do you really think that's needed?" She glanced down worriedly at Malfoy's form on the couch. "He doesn't look so bad. Not like a Bond villain at all. Quite Adonis-like, actually," she muttered appreciatively, tilting her head to gaze more closely at his face.

Hermione chose to ignore this.

"To be safe, yes," Hermione said. "Please, Mum. I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it was necessary."

Nancy Granger looked at her daughter and saw the serious, pleading look on her face.

"Well, all right," she relented. "It's a bit late, but I'll let your dad know and give your Aunt Esther a ring. I'll tell her we're having our house tented for termites."

Twenty minutes later, Hermione was waving from the doorstep as she watched her parents pack their suitcase into the trunk of their car and drive away, their headlights disappearing down the road. She let out a deep sigh before heading back inside the house, making sure all of the curtains were shut.

Hermione made herself another cup of tea and settled back inside the armchair, refocusing her gaze back on Draco Malfoy. Could she afford to move him someplace else? Apparating was too risky; if he woke up in the middle of it, either of them could get splinched. There was a reason he'd chosen her parents' house - here, in the Muggle world, in the quiet and oft-forgotten Newsome Street, home to unextraordinary houses for unextraordinary families.

Hermione picked up the scrap of paper her mum had found in the pocket of his robes, gazing at her own handwriting.

 _This book belongs to Hermione Granger_

 _If lost, please owl to:_

 _7 Newsome Street_

 _SURREY_

 _GU17 7HF  
_

The fact that he had this at all confused her. He must've torn it out of one of her old textbooks from Hogwarts. But why? Why would he have wanted her parents' address? A dark thought then occurred to her, and she glanced back up at his unconscious form.

She knew that Malfoy had been privy to important intel from the Dark Lord's side before he'd switched over to their side, years ago. She wondered if... She shook the thought away. Not that the idea hadn't occurred to her before. That was why she had enacted the spell on this house in the first place. So that they wouldn't find it, even if they'd wanted to.

She slid the piece of paper inside her pocket.

She hadn't seen Malfoy in years. Not in person, anyway.

So why was he here now?

ooo

 _4 years ago_

"Would you look at that," one of the hooded figures smirked. "Never thought I'd live to see the day. The mighty Malfoy and the Mudblood bitch, working together. Repulsive, that is. Then again I always had the feeling there was something off about you, Malfoy… Something deeply, psychologically wrong."

There was a loud, heavy noise as another masked and hooded figure entered the chamber, dragging someone in on their knees. Hermione stiffened when she realized that she recognized who it was, even though they'd shaven off his long, blond hair, and his pale skin was mottled with bruises.

She watched Malfoy's face go slack with recognition.

"Look at this!" he clapped. "The more the merrier!" The Death Eater's voice was giddy and loud, bouncing off the damp stone walls. "Let's see who's joined our little party, shall we?"

They clasped the chains around his hands and feet before the Death Eater grabbed his face, pulling it up. Hermione and Malfoy found themselves looking into the haggard face of Lucius Malfoy.

"Draco," he choked. Hermione watched as the knot in Malfoy's jaw bulged.

"You see, we thought a reunion would be in order. Once we realized you had defected and gone running to the other side, well – the Dark Lord simply blamed it on your father. All that work, all those years… and still, your father was too weak to raise his _only_ , begotten son correctly." He chuckled sinisterly, letting go of Lucius's head. "We voted to kill him right then and there, but the Dark Lord's sentimental, you see. He wanted you to watch him die, for you to _viscerally_ comprehend the consequences of your actions." Underneath his mask, he smirked. "But don't worry. He'll only go first. Then it'll the Mudblood. Then it'll be you. Oh, the sweet anticipation."

He brought out his wand with a flourish. He was grinning now, and Hermione could see his stained, yellow teeth. She could feel the bile rising in her throat. She could still see their wands in his pocket. Trophies, he'd called them.

"But – enough with the dreary monologue. Let's get started, shall we?" He pointed his wand at Lucius. Lucius's eyes – darker, older echoes of Malfoy's – grew wide with fear.

" _Crucio_."

ooo

Hermione Granger woke up with a start to find Draco Malfoy staring at her.

She jerked up, disoriented. It took her a moment to realize that she was still in her parents' house. It was early morning now. Pale light was streaming into the house through the curtains, casting soft shadows across the carpet.

Upright and conscious, he looked better – not that it was much consolation. He still looked like shit.

"Good morning, Granger," he drawled.

She blinked at him. So last night hadn't been a dream. Draco Malfoy had, in fact, shown up to her Muggle parents' house and fainted on their doorstep from his numerous, mysterious injuries. "Malfoy, what are you doing here?" she demanded.

His eyes dimmed. "I need your help."

"Then you should have come to _me_ ," she said, angrily. "You know, in the wizarding world, where I live? You could have sent an owl. You could have gone to see me at the Ministry. Not - not shown up _here_ , frightening the wits out of my poor parents - _Muggle_ parents - and possibly involving them in whatever dangerous plot you've gotten yourself into now."

For a brief moment she thought an expression of remorse flickered across his face, but she might have just imagined it – whatever it was, it was gone as quickly as it came.

"I came here," he said slowly, "because I need to disappear."

 _Disappear_. Hermione tried to digest this. Of course the first thing Malfoy would think of was to come to the Muggle world if he needed to disappear. It was the last place anyone would think to look for him.

In Hermione Granger's childhood home, no less.

This made the ball of panic she'd been nesting for the past few hours burst in her stomach. She could feel the dread rising in her throat – acrid and hot.

"Why?" she demanded. "Why _here_? Why not - I don't know, some tropical island hundreds of miles away from civilization?" Hundreds of miles away from – _specifically_ – her parents?

He hesitated for a second. "I remembered something you said, during the war," he said. "How you found a spell to make your house untraceable by magic unless they stood at the pile of rocks and said a magic word. It was the name of your baby sister. Violet."

She felt like she'd been punched in the gut. Only a few people in her life knew about Violet. Not even Harry and Ron had known before she had told them about the spell she had cast on her house. She felt her face flush with heat, realizing that Draco Malfoy had been privy to this information all these years. Why hadn't he mentioned it before? Why hadn't he lorded it over her, used it to hurt her? Mock her?

She stopped herself there. The old Draco Malfoy would have.

The one currently sitting on her couch had just tucked it away in his back pocket until he needed it.

Frankly, she couldn't tell which was worse.

"You weren't supposed to know that," she said hotly.

"Then you should have whispered quieter," he said, irritably.

She glared at him. "Well, you bloody well can't stay here. For all I know, you've already endangered my parents just by showing up on their doorstep."

He scowled. "Trust me. I made sure no one was following me."

"You fainted when they opened the door!" she exclaimed. "Forgive me for being highly skeptical of how _diligently_ you were looking out if you were lying face down on our doormat."

He turned his eyes away. She noticed the muscle in his jaw, the one that pulsed whenever he was angry. His voice was low and deep. "I can't go anywhere else. Everywhere else, I'm detectable. This was the only place I could think of."

Hermione stared at him, trying to calm down her ragged breathing. There was a niggling voice in her head that told her he wouldn't have come here unless he was truly desperate. Even after everything they'd been through in the war, they weren't exactly friends. They hadn't kept in touch, nor had they felt much inclined to. They had both been in different places when the war ended, that much she knew.

She had followed his trial closely, though. It had been hard not to, what with the frenzy the media had with it. Immediately after the war, he and a few other people - Pansy Parkinson, Crabbe and Goyle, among several others who had survived - were arrested and charged with conspiracy for having supported the Dark cause, no matter how briefly. It had been a grueling and charged trial. Many of those who had lost people during the war naturally had funneled al of their grief and rage into the verdict.

In the end, considering that Malfoy and the others had ended up feeding important information to their side - not to mention having physically fought with them during the final battles - they were acquitted.

"Tell me," Hermione said, firmly. She sat back down on the chair, and he looked up, jaw squared, meeting her eyes. "Tell me everything."

ooo

The simple truth was that not everyone had been happy that they had been acquitted of all charges. Turncoats, the press had nicknamed them. Many had thought they were no better than the Death Eaters who had killed on behalf of the Dark Lord. "Just opportunistic scum" had been the common phrase. _Weak-spined_. _Cowards_.

Even in Hermione's group there had been some dissonance about what was true justice. Many had not supported letting the Turncoats join their side in the first place - execution was what they wanted - but it had become unavoidable once their numbers began to drastically decline due to injuries and death.

Who knew whether having them on their side actually won them the war? They, after all, had lost people to the Dark Lord, too. Parents, friends, family. Malfoy had lost both his parents to the Dark Lord. He'd been in the same chamber, forced to watch while his father was tortured by people they had considered family friends. She knew this because she'd been there, too.

Hermione remembered sitting there and watching Lucius scream in agony, thinking about what that man meant to her. What he symbolized. He, after all, wanted to rid the world of her kind. He was one of soldiers hell-bent carrying out this mass genocide. He genuinely believed that she was beneath them, and that she didn't deserve to walk among their kind. The only reason he hadn't been allowed to live was because his own son had betrayed them, which the Dark Lord had considered to be an unforgivable failing as a father. The sins of the father, et cetera and vice versa. At least that's how the Dark Lord's logic worked.

Knowing all that, managing to string together what she had thought was sound reasoning… she thought she would feel better, seeing him suffer. She thought she would feel vindicated, bathed in the afterglow of a perverse kind of justice they never talked about in her textbooks. Lucius had to look at her while he died, slowly and painfully. Knowing this, she had tried to smirk at him from where she was chained to the wall. She'd wanted to. She'd wanted to gather up that feeling of nausea that sat rottenly at the pit of her stomach and make it disappear. All so she could do this one last thing: smile at the man who hated her and wanted to kill her – while he died.

Instead all she had felt was sick.

Hermione remembered all of this while she waited for Harry and Ron to get to her parents' house. Malfoy was still in her living room, just sitting. He looked the way he did when he'd been awaiting his trial. Grim and stony.

There were two consecutive pops. The tall, lean figures of Harry and Ron landed in her living room, right across from Malfoy. They greeted the sight of him with expletives, though not exactly of the hostile nature they'd been accustomed to.

Hermione leaned over by the door frame that separated the living room from the kitchen.

"Glad you two could come on such short notice," Hermione said.

They whirled around to face her, their faces bewildered. They were still in their Ministry robes.

"You said tea at your parents' house," Harry said, his brows furrowed with concern. Ron was still glancing at Malfoy in her living room as if he was starting to doubt his own eyesight. "I knew it had to be odd enough to be code for something."

"What the hell's Malfoy doing here?" Ron blurted. "As in, _here_ here?"

"We'll explain that. Let's all have a seat," Hermione said, walking back into the kitchen. They all followed her, including Malfoy. Sitting down across from each other, Ron got a closer look at him. He looked towards Hermione again, before his eyes swiveled back to Malfoy.

"Merlin, Hermione - did you do this?" He motioned towards Malfoy's partly swollen face. It was hard to ignore his hopeful tone.

"Don't look so prematurely impressed, Weasley," Malfoy said with disgust.

Ron frowned. "So that's a no?"

Hermione sighed and gave him a stern look. "Listen. Let's not muck about, shall we?" She dropped the latest copy of the Daily Prophet in front of Harry and Ron. It was turned to the headline about Pansy Parkinson's death. They all stared at the picture the paper had featured of Pansy. It was an old picture, one from before the war - one of her smiling in her Hogwarts uniform. They all grew quiet.

"What do you know about this?" she asked Harry and Ron.

"Not much," said Harry. The picture did something to Harry. He looked away from Pansy's smiling face and didn't look at it again. "And even if I did, Hermione, it's confidential. Rules of the job."

"Were either of you at the scene?"

"No. But Seamus was, and Ernie. A few others. They're the ones investigating." Harry paused, looking hard at her. "Why are you asking? Why does it matter?"

Hermione ignored his question. "Did they say anything about the body?"

Harry and Ron both looked at Hermione in perturbed shock.

"All right, what the fuck's going on?" Harry said, moving his eyes from her to Malfoy. From the look on his face, he was growing increasingly disturbed by their interrogation about Pansy Parkinson's body.

Malfoy spoke up this time. "She was killed."

Harry stared at him, scrutinizing. "You sound quite sure of yourself there, Malfoy."

"That's because I am, Potter," he said sharply. "Pansy would never kill herself."

Ron scoffed. "That's what everybody says about suicides."

" _Ron_." Hermione's voice was like ice. Ron's ears turned pink, but he didn't look at her. Instead, he kept his eyes on Malfoy.

"How do you know Pansy wouldn't kill herself?" Harry asked, his voice even. "She'd just gotten out of St. Mungo's. Who knows what that could have done to her psyche."

"She checked herself in and she checked herself out," Malfoy said. "It wasn't like she was committed. She went in voluntarily. I saw her the day after she checked out. She was... happy," he said, shaking his head. "I just _know_ , all right? I know she wouldn't do something like that. She was a bit broken after the trial, sure, but she was too entitled to ever think of something as preposterous as ridding the world of the bright and shiny diamond that is Pansy Parkinson."

"Geez," Ron muttered. "Talk about not speaking ill of the dead."

"Say you're right," Harry continued, unfazed. "Say she was, in fact, murdered. What does that have to do with you hiding out here in Hermione's parents' house?"

There was a beat of silence.

"Unless," Harry said, stonily, "you're the one who did it."

And then it happened, as Hermione feared it inevitably would. There was a flurry of movement and suddenly they were all on their feet, pointing their wands at each other – everyone, that is, except Hermione.

"Drop your wand, Malfoy," Ron warned.

"I recognize it may be a tall order to ask the pair of you to not be idiots, just this once," Malfoy hissed, "but I didn't kill her. Do me a favor and let some oxygen finally make it to your brain. You really think that if I killed her, I'd come running _here_?"

"I think desperate times call for desperate measures, so yes," Harry snapped.

" _STOP!"_ Hermione yelled. They all froze, their wands still raised. She glared at all of them. "You're all being idiots. Put your wands down before I confiscate them all."

No one moved. They all just looked at each other warily.

Rolling her eyes, Hermione drew her wand. " _Accio_ -"

"All right, all right," grumbled Ron. He begrudgingly lowered his wand. "No need to be such a grouchy schoolmarm. We're only trying to protect you."

"I'd be less like a grouchy schoolmarm if every time the three of you were in a room, you'd stop trying to hex each other to protect this delusional concept you all have that is your own fragile masculinity," she snapped.

"My bloody masculinity's just fine," Harry muttered. He withdrew his wand at the same time Malfoy did. He didn't put it away just yet, though. "What I want to know is if you're aware you're harboring a criminal fugitive."

"For fuck's sake - I didn't kill her, all right?" Malfoy seethed. "The whole reason I came here is because - I think somebody's going to try to kill me too."

There was silence. And then Ron guffawed.

"Well tell that bastard to get in line!"

" _Ron_ ," Hermione said warningly.

She knew it was going to be a difficult time trying to get them to hear Malfoy out - definitely a great deal of handholding and probable wand-confiscating - but she was hoping they'd break the barrier here sometime soon. She hoped so. This entire ordeal was giving her a migraine.

Insufferable men! Even fighting – and winning – a war together didn't change that.

"Humor me," said Harry darkly.

"Last night, I was attacked in Diagon Alley."

Ron snorted. "Sound the alarms. Malfoy got attacked in Diagon Alley. Never mind that loads of people get attacked there every day. But God forbid a _Malfoy_ gets his feathers ruffled in some dark, godforsaken alley!"

"Not like this," Malfoy said firmly, shaking his head. "I was blindsided. Whoever it was – they were cloaked, like they were hiding. But I could feel their... rage. They knocked me down and then another one held me down while he did this to me."

Three pairs of eyes were on Malfoy as he began to roll up his sleeve, revealing his milky skin. And then they saw it. Still fresh and barely healing, unimaginably awful to look at. Hermione had to turn away, her hand raised to her mouth.

There, hideously marring Draco Malfoy's pale forearm, was the Dark Mark.

Except it wasn't the Dark Mark they were used to. This one was red and angry, with the skin around it raw and puckered.

Someone had branded him with it.

* * *

 **Notes:** 1\. I know nothing about postal codes/addresses in England, so her address is gibberish, I'm sorry. 2. My reasoning behind Harry and Ron being able to Apparate into Hermione's parents' home is because they'd been there before and Hermione had set up exceptions, whereas Draco only has the address, so he would have only been able to Apparate onto her street, and then look for the "pile of rocks" (the spell is that her house isn't visible to magical folk). This probably isn't cohesive with the rules of Apparition but that's okay! I'm sure as hell not losing any sleep over it. :) I hope you won't be either.

Thanks for reading! Please review if you feel so inclined!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"I need to find out if the same was done to Pansy," Malfoy said to the three of them he had stunned into silence. He was rolling his sleeve back down, much to the relief of everyone else in the room. Hermione noticed that he winced a little when the fabric of his shirt grazed his brand.

It made her queasy to think about how Malfoy had run away from that mark all his life, and now - as a result of a back alley ambush - it was burned into his skin. Perhaps there were just some things you couldn't outrun, after all.

Ron, too, was looking a little green and had sobered up considerably since Malfoy's reveal. "Wouldn't they have said so in the papers?"

Hermione shook her head. "Not if they're trying to keep it quiet." She'd been working in the Ministry for four years now. Every government had its secrets. She knew there were some things they kept from the public, even now.

"What purpose would that serve?"

"I can't say for sure," Hermione sighed. "But I can think of a few. They might not want to incite public hysteria. They might think Pansy did it to herself, as some kind of sick tribute to her true allegiance. They might not even think it has anything to do with her death at all, especially if they're convinced it was a suicide. Considering her stint at St. Mungo's -"

"For the last time, she wasn't committed-" Malfoy angrily interrupted.

"They could also reason that it may have been some kind of mental break," she finished. She gave Malfoy an apologetic look. "Not everyone knows Pansy like you do."

"So..." said Ron, hesitantly, looking from her to Harry. "What do we do?"

Hermione turned to the both of them. "I'm sorry to involve the both of you, but you're both on the Magical Law Enforcement Squad. I just need to ask if you can find out if Pansy had the brand. That way we can find out if this isn't just a one-off."

There was the screech of chair legs against the floor as Harry got to his feet, agitatedly running a hand through his dark hair.

"Hermione, do you really think something bigger's at play here?" he asked. "People aren't exactly falling over themselves with joy over Malfoy's wartime redemption; you know how angry people were about the verdict. Maybe some guys just happened to see him in Diagon Alley and jumped him for a scare."

Harry didn't attempt to hide his skepticism. Ron was still frowning at Malfoy, but she noticed his gaze was now directed towards his branded forearm.

"Could be," she admitted. "But we can't know that yet, can we?"

They were silent, their faces deep in thought. How hard could it be? Ernie and Seamus were on the team investigating Pansy's murder. Those two weren't exactly the strong and silent type, especially once you got a few drinks in them.

"Please. I'm asking you this as a favor," she said.

"For you or for him?" Harry said coldly, nodding towards Malfoy.

"For me," Hermione said quickly. She found herself getting quite annoyed that Harry was being so outwardly antagonistic. She knew he and Malfoy weren't exactly on friendly terms, but it wasn't like Malfoy had reverted to his schoolyard bully antics once the war had ended. After his trial, he'd basically disappeared. Nobody blamed him for it, of course. His life had been dissected and dragged through the public court, no stone left unturned. If that didn't convince a man into a hermitlike existence, she didn't know what else would.

"All right," Harry relented begrudgingly. "We'll see what I can find out. I can't guarantee anything, though."

Hermione let out a deep sigh. "Thank you. Thank you both."

"Brilliant! Now that we've agreed to break half a dozen Ministry rules on your unwelcomely pale house guest's behalf," Ron muttered, shooting a glare at Malfoy, "can Harry and I talk to you in private?"

ooo

Hermione had never had a boy up in her childhood bedroom before. For many reasons, really, but mainly: her room hadn't transitioned with her through adolescence. She still had a faded Reading Rainbow poster up by her bed, lace curtains that were now yellow with age, with stuffed animals lining the top of her bookshelf, organized in height from smallest to tallest - including a cartoon tooth with fairy wings that her parents' dentistry practice used to give out for a few short months in the 90's. This was in addition to her ancient floral bedding and her collection of porcelain horses neatly arranged on her dresser.

Now there were two. Men, actually. She was astutely aware of their status as _men_ , seeing them in her old room, tall with broad shoulders and squared jaws. The sheer space they took up made her feel room confining and just that much smaller. But it wasn't only that - Harry and Ron clad in their dark green Ministry robes were jarring against her pale yellow walls and porcelain figurines. They looked like people she had cut out of a magazine and pasted on her wall. It actually made her blush a little bit.

She cast a silencing charm on her door from where she sat on her bed.

"What are you doing, Hermione?" Ron said. "Are you really letting him stay _here_ in your parents' house?"

"Just until we find out about the brand," she replied. "My parents are at my Aunt Esther's in Liverpool for a few days. That should give you enough time to get the information, shouldn't it?"

"But _why_?" Ron groaned emphatically. "Why _here_? Why- why _you_?"

Why her, indeed.

Her hands fidgeted with a loose seam on her decades-old duvet. "Apparently, during the war, Malfoy heard us in the woods. The part where I was telling you about the spell I'd put on my house to protect my parents. He needed to be undetectable, and to disappear, and... this was the only place he could think of."

"How convenient for him," Harry snorted. "The childhood home of the girl with an insufferably upstanding moral code."

"He showed up at the door all bloodied up with a concussion, Harry. What was I supposed to do?" She sucked in a breath through her teeth, glaring at him. "Why are you being like this?"

"Being like what?"

"Being..." Hermione sputtered. "Hostile and unpleasant!"

Harry's eyes flashed. "Because I don't appreciate Malfoy showing up here and getting your innocent Muggle parents involved in whatever suspicious _bullshit_ he has going on!"

"Neither do I!" said Hermione. "But there's not much I can do about it now, is there?"

"Yes, there is," snapped Harry. "It's called making the hard decision, Hermione. Self-preservation. Telling him no. Kicking him out. Letting him fend for himself. He's got a great big old manor to coop himself up in. He's got a wand that he's clearly proven he can use in defense. If he is, in fact, all muddled up in something evil, then that's his own bloody fault, isn't it?"

Hermione just stared at him, shocked. The silence boiled all around them.

"Harry's right, Hermione," Ron said. Seated at her vanity desk, he had grabbed an old teddy bear of hers and was hugging it to his chest, resting his chin on it. "I mean... you two aren't even friends. What gives him the right to show up here and expect your help?"

"I don't like it either, but I owe him," she said softly. "We were both in that chamber together. It could have been me or him, and when the moment came - he..." she trailed off. The horrible memory of that day still made the hair on her skin stand up on end.

Harry sighed. It was a deep sigh that seemed to release all of the air in her tiny room. He sat down on the edge of her bed next to her.

"You've got to stop thinking like that. We all fought. We all knew what we were signing up for. Malfoy did what he did because he chose to. Period. The end. There's no ellipses. There's no reward."

Hermione bit her lip. She knew Harry was right, and she'd promptly join in on that philosophy... just as soon as she did this for Malfoy. That way they would be square. That way she wouldn't feel the way she did when she relived that moment in her dreams when she heard him scream.

It wasn't that she felt that he deserved it. Fat lot life did in terms of who deserved what. She just wanted to be able scrape his face off of her conscience. Put him in her Completed stack.

"I'll try and get the information as soon as I can," Harry said, rubbing his face with his hand. He looked exhausted.

"Meaning we'll take them out tonight and get them wasted," Ron clarified.

"Thank you." She took off the silencing charm, and Harry and Ron began moving towards her bedroom door to leave.

"Harry," she spoke up, again. There was a thread of worry in her voice that she found impossible to hide. "What if he's right?"

Harry froze, his hand on her doorknob.

"About Pansy? About... this being something bigger?"

"Then the Ministry'll handle it, Hermione," he said. And then he was out the door and heading down the stairs.

Ron was pointing at something, squinting. "Is that - bloody hell, Hermione. Is that a tooth with wings?"

"Talk's over. Get out," Hermione told him, pushing him out of the door. She made a mental note to trash that old thing. Or at least hide it in the garage.

When she got downstairs, Harry and Ron were getting ready to head back to the Ministry. They had positioned themselves in Malfoy's general area, and she heard the low mutterings of their voices.

"Try anything funny and I'll blast your balls into oblivion," Harry threatened.

"And the bit that lives above them too," Ron added, menacingly.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Enough with your obsession with my genitalia. I get it."

Ron lunged at Malfoy, but Harry caught him by his shoulder. "You'll hear from us tonight, Hermione," he said tiredly.

And then with the startling crack of a car backfiring, they were gone.

"You really ought to stop baiting them, you know," Hermione frowned, brushing past Malfoy towards the kitchen. Now that the adrenaline had somewhat abated, she had a dull headache and could hear her own stomach growling. She could think of nothing else but a hearty breakfast and a nice, steaming pot of coffee.

"You could say the same for them."

"That I could," she replied. "But they're the ones doing you a favor. They're breaking Ministry rules for you. They never usually agree to do that unless they're drunk – for anyone."

Not that anyone had - until today. The three of them had broken enough rules to last them the rest of entire lives, she thought.

Hermione prepared her parents' coffee maker. She'd gotten them one of those trendy one-cup machines last Christmas, but if she had to guess, it was still in its box somewhere, unopened and collecting a generous layer of dust. They told her that making _pots_ of coffee felt luxurious; having a machine spit out _one cup at a time_ felt prohibitive. As if anyone would judge a pair of retired dentists on their caffeine habit.

Malfoy leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed. His face was cool and serious. "They're doing it for you. Not for me."

"No," she said, shaking her head. She dumped heaping teaspoons of coffee grounds into the filter. "They're doing it for you. Their fragile, masculine pride just wouldn't let them admit it, so I gave them a way to do it without the mental breakdown."

She turned on the machine. Within two seconds it was loudly gurgling. In just a few minutes she would have an entire pot of her life's sweet elixir. Perhaps her parents were right about the whole pots versus single cups philosophy.

Her stomach growled again, this time with a pang of pain. She grimaced, and then fished out a pan from one of their cupboards. They had cereal - that crunchy, healthy bran kind her parents bought in family size boxes that claimed to lower cholesterol and have one hundred percent of your daily fiber - but she was starving. She'd completely forgotten to eat dinner last night. She needed something quick, hot and filling. Eggs.

When she looked up, Malfoy was watching her. She realized then what an odd sight this must be for him - all of these Muggle gadgets. She would have to ask him exactly how much of Muggle Studies he could remember... after she'd had a cup of coffee. Most likely two.

She flipped the first omelet into a plate and cracked two more in for Malfoy.

"Coffee maker," she said to Malfoy, pointing to the coffee maker. "It makes that hot drink adults have so they don't kill each other." She pointed to the pan heating up on the stove. "Breakfast. I hope you like eggs."

ooo

She didn't really know what she was supposed to do while they waited for Harry and Ron to get back to them. Malfoy wasn't exactly the conversational kind. One look at his face and Hermione knew he had some particularly heavy things on his mind, so she busied herself while he went back to lying down on their couch with a bag of frozen peas against his ribs.

She dusted and threw away old junk mail. Nervous energy always made Hermione an excellent cleaner. Then after she had finished tidying up the kitchen, she went up to her old room and began rummaging through her old things. She perused old schoolwork, letters, and threw away things she didn't need anymore. She stuffed old clothes she had long since outgrown into trash bags and made a mental note to drop them off at the local thrift store whenever she had a chance.

At one point she even had that dumb tooth fairy plush in her hands. The top was gray from years of gathering dust. It had big, sparkling, embroidered eyes and a wide smile. The wings were made of some cheap iridescent material, the same that Princess Halloween costumes were usually made of.

She threw it into the Thrift Store bag.

A few seconds later, she had grabbed it back up again and was stuffing it into the back of her closet.

ooo

"Hello darling. How's it going over there?"

"It's fine, Mum," Hermione said into the phone. "How are you and Dad? Aunt Esther and Grandpa?"

Hermione slipped out into the back patio, closing the glass door behind her. She took a seat on their rickety old rocking bench and spoke quietly in case their neighbors were out working in their gardens. It was late afternoon now, and the light from the sunset was casting a golden glow on everything.

"Oh, everyone's just fine over here. They were happy to see us. Said we never came 'round anymore because retirement's made us lazy." There was some shuffling and she heard familiar voices in the background, including her dad's. "Just wanted to check in and see how you were doing. Hermione, you are feeding him, aren't you?" her mum asked, not attempting to hide the concern in her voice.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mum. I slid him a plate of gruel just this afternoon."

"Oh, don't joke, dear. Maybe give him some of that bran cereal your dad and I eat. It's full of fiber, you know. Really good for your bowel movements."

For a second she glanced up, towards the living room where Malfoy was. He was perfectly still, his eyes closed, and his long legs draped over the arm of the couch. Even from here she could make out the sharp, smooth lines of his face. God, he looked like a marble statue she had stolen from a museum.

She wondered how receptive he would be to anything she said concerning his bowel movements.

She looked away, her face flushing. "I think he's fine, Mum," she said.

"How would you know that? Everybody could use a little more fiber in their diets – including you," her mum said, matter of factly. "Now, has there been any news?"

"I'm hoping to have something tonight. I'll call you in the morning. Right now we're still all playing a bit of the waiting game. Just have fun with Aunt Esther and Grandpop, will you? Don't worry about me. Think of this as going on holiday," she said.

"Darling, your father and I are retired," her mum said, breezily. "We're on holiday until our organs decide to throw in the towel and turn all the lights out."

ooo

Hermione made herself a cup of tea and sat at her parents' kitchen table, thinking about what her mum had said. The last time she had popped around here for a visit had been for the Grangers' Annual Christmas party, and the thought of her parents just biding their time on the railway to old age and death made her feel a little guilty. She should be better about visiting, she scolded herself. Just a few times a month would be an improvement.

The truth was that it was easy to get swallowed up by the Wizarding World – to even forget that she straddled two worlds. Now that she spent all of her time in the Wizarding World, coming back home felt like a double life – that this one would be the one that felt unreal and forced was the shock to her. She'd been born into this life. This was the first one she'd ever known. It should be the other way around, she reasoned. But it wasn't. Not since Hogwarts, not since the war.

"Do you like it there?"

Hermione was catapulted from her thoughts. When she looked up, Malfoy had taken the seat across from her. He appeared better, if not still a little haggard, considering. Once again, she was jarred at how he looked sitting at her parents' kitchen table, the bag of peas – now defrosted – in his hand. How odd and misplaced.

She must have looked very confused, because he went on. "At the Ministry," he clarified.

She thought for a second, her brain changing gears. "I like it enough," she said. "I don't exactly dance on the way to my desk, but I've been told I have a very determined stride." She paused, as if waiting for him to follow up with more questions. He didn't. "What about you?" she said.

He raised his eyebrows at her.

"I meant – what have you been… working on?"

She'd never had to make small talk with Malfoy before. In all of her years at Hogwarts and even during the war, she tried to speak to him as little as possible, knowing that doing so was like throwing live grenades at a trampoline. That, of course, didn't prevent them from nearly biting each other's heads off every so often.

"The stocks from my father's business plummeted after the war, so I ended up selling the company," he explained. "I've put the money in a reserve to start my own business down the line. One that isn't quite as tainted with so much…" he trailed off. "History."

Hermione, of course, knew all of this. She was a regular reader of the Daily Prophet, and the Daily Prophet had kept close tabs on Malfoy's business dealings – as any newspaper would when it came to the downfall of one of the Wizarding World's most infamous businesses.

So many shadows followed Malfoy, she realized. In all aspects of his life.

Still, she couldn't pity him too much. She knew he was still sitting on a sinful amount of wealth to keep him more than comfortable for the next hundred years. Which was more than she could say for the rest of them.

"History," she repeated. "Right." She looked down at her steaming cup of tea and got up. "Let me get you some tea," she muttered, making her way to the kitchen. The kettle was still hot. She went to grab him a mug from one of the cabinets.

"I never got to thank you," he said. His tone was low and even. "For testifying at my trial."

Hermione paused pouring, watching her hands. She had a flashback of his trial - how hollow his eyes had looked, how gaunt he'd become. She'd agreed to testify first, and then she had spent a week trying to convince Harry.

Hermione resumed pouring when she trusted herself again. "I did it because it was the right thing to do."

"Is that the same reason you're doing this now?"

This. Helping him out. Corralling the cooperation of Harry and Ron into breaking Ministry rules. Letting him stay in her parents' house despite never having invited him in the first place.

"Yes," she said, without looking at him.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "You're doing it because you pity me. Admit it, Granger."

She sighed, putting down the kettle. She looked up at him from where she stood. "It's complicated."

"Did you think I deserved to be acquitted?"

"Did _you_ think you deserved to be acquitted?"

He smirked, but barely. Just a whisper of the thing. "Being publicly despised is still a lot better than rotting away in Azkaban. Social isolation, I can handle."

She set his tea down in front of him, along with some cream and sugar. "I hate to burst your bubble, Malfoy, but you've been publicly despised even before the war."

"How could I forget," he said sarcastically.

"Although, I have to say, your former life as a widely-acknowledged prick did make your redemption arc all the more tantalizing." Hermione frowned as she remembered the rumors that there had already been offers to novelize Malfoy's life before he turned them all down and threatened legal action.

"Redemption arc," he scoffed. "Is that what they call it? Funny. I don't feel very redeemed."

She watched him closely, crossing her arms on her chest. "Well, why not?"

"Because, Granger." He met her eyes and kept them there. Cool and mercurial. Sometimes Malfoy was so monochromatic it made her shiver. "No matter what you do, the past always finds a way to haunt you."

ooo

Hermione kept glancing at the clock. She didn't think she'd spent so much time looking at a clock before, until today. Today was a landmark for many things, she realized. A great, many, _odd_ things.

A few hours earlier, Harry and Ron had owled to let her know that Seamus and Ernie had agreed to go out for drinks after their shift. It was nearing midnight now. She felt exhausted - albeit having never left the house - but a part of her felt too nervous to sleep.

She grabbed a bottle of wine and headed into the living room, where Malfoy was. He was reading one of her Muggle Studies textbooks. When she'd glanced at the book from behind his head, she saw that he was on the page detailing the functions of a coffee maker.

She turned on the TV but set the volume on low. She poured herself a glass of wine. Malfoy put down her book and stared at the TV.

"It's a Muggle television," she explained.

"I know what it is," he said, defensively. "I've just never seen one… _on_ before."

"It's quite great for mindless entertainment."

"I can see that," he said.

"There are some great nature documentaries, though. Not all of it is mind-numbing trash."

Hermione browsed the channels. Game shows and reality TV shows and commercials flickered through the screen. Finally, she settled on a nature documentary about the Sahara (weren't they always in the Sahara?). She set down the remote and sipped her wine, trying her hardest to resist the impulse to glance at the clock. She knew how disappointed she'd be to realize only three minutes had gone by since the last time she checked.

The screen panned in on miles and miles of golden sand and a simmering, cloudless sky.

"The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north, to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes to a coastal plain," a deep, male voice smoothly narrated.

"I was looking around at all the pictures you've got hung up," Malfoy said. "Why aren't there any pictures of her? Your sister. Violet."

Hermione moved her gaze from the Saharan landscape to Malfoy. He wasn't looking at her, however. He was still looking at the TV.

"We didn't get to take any," she replied. "She died a few hours after she was born."

Hermione'd only been eight years old when Violet was born. She hadn't even gotten to hold her when she was still alive, but she'd been in the room while mum held her tiny body and cried.

His voice was quiet, gentler than before. "I'm sorry to hear that."

She shook the memory away. "It was a long time ago."

"My mother had a few. I don't think she'd ever intended for me to be an only child. She planted a rosebush in our garden for each one of them. When I was born she was afraid I wouldn't live past infancy. She kept me mostly indoors until my father finally convinced her to let me take up flying."

Hermione had a brief flashback of Malfoy's mother, Narcissa Malfoy. She'd never met her in person, but she'd seen pictures. Icy and regal were the words that came to mind. She tried to imagine that same woman, overprotective and frantic over her only baby boy. The type of toll that would take on a person, to experience so much grief and loss. No wonder she'd doted on Draco so much. No wonder she'd given up so much for him to be able to survive.

She cleared her throat. "Flying. Being suspended in air on a deathstick. Right." She put down her wineglass and looked at him, really looked at him. He was so pale that the colors from the TV faintly reflected off his face. "Is that why you're so pale?"

Malfoy blinked at her. Then he glared. "No, I just enjoy weaving elaborate lies to keep people from finding out that I was born with albinism."

"You should embrace it. Stand in the middle of a park square completely unmoving for hours, and then scare the wits out of little children who dare to get too close." Hermione was giggling to herself. She enjoyed the imagery of Malfoy as a street performer, with a hat set down on the ground to collect tips and spare change.

Malfoy was shaking his head. "The sheer idiocy of the things that amuse you will never cease to amaze me."

"Excuse me for trying to find some lighthearted humor in these dark times," she replied, a tad defensively. "I think I deserve some joy after uncomfortably banishing my parents from their own home so my childhood enemy could bum around my living room."

"You didn't have to send them away. I told you no one was following me." Hermione snorted at this. "Besides, I was never _your_ childhood enemy." He shifted in his seat. "I was Potter's. You were just collateral."

" _Collateral_?"

"The way you and Weasley flanked him, like you were Siamese triplets. Of course you'd be caught in the line of fire, the way you two were defending him all the time. It was disgusting. I'm surprised Potter doesn't resent you more for stripping him of his own dignity in standing up for himself."

She snorted. "Says the boy with two shadows named Crabbe and Goyle."

"That's different. They needed the affiliation."

"Oh? Nothing at all to do with their threatening stature and thick-boned fists?"

"Unlike you, Granger, I believe people are the sum of their parts and not just the embodiment of their most advantageous physical traits."

Hermione stared at him, annoyed. His smirk had returned and was pointed right at her. It was obvious he was feeling better now - his face wasn't broken. What a shame.

"You truly are still as insufferable as I remember," she muttered. She poured herself another glass.

"We're creatures of habit, Granger. All of us."

"And yet some of us miraculously pass through life not universally despised. Shocking!"

"I've got bigger things to worry about than being liked and getting invited to silly little parties."

"I'm not talking about _invites to parties_ ," she said back. "I'm talking about decency. I'm talking about not engaging Ron and Harry with snide taunts after they've just agreed to help you out - despite having absolutely no reason to. Maybe even showing an inkling of gratitude for the fact that they've agreed to break their confidentiality vows to find out the information you need."

Malfoy was looking at her now, oblivious to the TV. She expected him to look annoyed, her having given out yet another "Holier Than Thou" lecture (his words, not hers). She did see a faint glint of annoyance, but there was something else too. Something else she couldn't quite read, which meant that it was something foreign, exuding from him.

"Look, Granger, I-"

And then there were two loud pops so sudden she swore they almost made her jump out of her skin. Before she knew it, Harry and Ron had materialized in the living room with them. The bubble from their previous moment - if she could even call it that - immediately burst. Malfoy moved her textbook aside, also getting to his feet, his face serious and expectant. Hermione set down her wineglass, readying herself.

"We've got news," Harry said grimly.

* * *

 **Notes:** The narrator's lines about the Sahara are from the Sahara Wikipedia page and meant to be read in your finest David Attenborough impression.

Thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed! Surprised and elated people still read my stuff especially since every time I check (/quietly lurk) the fandom, there's a ton of awesome new fic. Thanks for all the love!


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